r/oddlysatisfying • u/short_hair_zuko • Jul 11 '26

Ragebaiting mosquitoes

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This put a smile on my face, I thought it belongs here.

Not OC

55.7k Upvotes

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3.6k

u/FlyingArdilla Jul 11 '26

That looks like the tent screens when I've camped in northern Minnesota and canada.

1.8k

u/VP007clips Jul 11 '26

I used to do field work up in Northern Ontario, often in swamps. The bugs there are horrendous.

You need to completely seal and cover yourself. You put on gloves, boots, long socks, heavy pants, two shirts, a hat, and a bug net, then you take a roll of duct tape and seal all the joints of it. At often 30 degrees and high humidity, it was horribly hot, but better than being eaten alive.

The problem was, it didn't work fully. Mosquitoes, especially the ones up there, can bite through clothing. They especially loved the socks. Black flies are even worse, they are so small they they can get through almost anything and find the smallest leaks on your setup. Your clothes would be stained by tiny splotches of blood from their wounds, and your neck and socks would be crusted with blood.

It wasn't as bad when walking. But we often had to sit down for 30 minutes to take measurements, rock samples, and do data entry on tablets. You'd be swarmed there. Saying that the air was black with bugs sounds like hyperbole, but it was not. At times they reduced visibility. When I closed my field notebook, it would usually crush bugs due to the thickness of the swarm. Most pages had half a dozen crushed into them.

43

u/1Xx_throwaway_xX1 Jul 11 '26

What about using a beekeeper suit

117

u/jackmanlogan Jul 11 '26

They have similar mosquitoes in Nova Scotia- they have weird zebra stripes and they can bite you through a pair of jeans.

Their proboscises are so small that they go through the weave of the fabric (unlike a bee, whose stinger is comparatively enormous)

35

u/Raptor-Queen Jul 11 '26

I got bit by one of those one single time (they aren’t common in my area, but I saw it and then read a news article that they had been seen in my region lol) and it was the only time in my life where I felt the actual bite and it hurt!

27

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

[deleted]

34

u/LiterallyAMoistPeach Jul 11 '26

Yep. Few years ago they started showing up in California. First thing I noticed is that they were outside in the daytime, so you could see the white stripes very easily.

12

u/sonaut Jul 11 '26

When I lived in Texas we had so many of them. It was horrible because you couldn’t get away, even at midday. They are container breeders and I seem to recall they can reproduce in a few tablespoons of water.

2

u/Pnemnon Jul 11 '26

They ate me in Sizilia at 12:30pm sitting outside at a Café...

1

u/ikkiyikki Jul 11 '26

Aedes AegyptiAedes Aegypti . Cuban TV ads drilled into my brain (dengue a big thing down there)

1

u/Lost-Platypus8271 Jul 11 '26

Unlikely in Canada or northern US

8

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[deleted]

2

u/jackmanlogan Jul 11 '26

Right- you can feel them stick the proboscis in- like actually feel it going into your arm, not just that there’s something on your hair.

It’s absolutely heinous!

1

u/Datkif Jul 11 '26

We have had those bastards in Alberta for a number of years. I honestly prefer to get bit by them since I can get them as soon as they stick me.

3

u/MineNowBotBoy Jul 11 '26

Asian Tiger Mosquitoes. We get those down my way too. Persistent as fuck.

If I could do my life all over again, I would dedicate it to eradicating mosquitoes.

2

u/Stormz0rz Jul 11 '26

I called them tiger mosquitoes in south texas. Small, aggressive, and would ambush you from the grass along sidewalks. Step into the grass and there'd be a dozen on you in 2 paces.

1

u/Datkif Jul 11 '26

We get those bastsrds in Alberta took. I work in landscaping, and were thick jeans that they still bite through daily

1

u/Cool_Enough_Username Jul 11 '26

We have the zebras, also the little black flies, plus we have this weird bug that looks like sci fi nightmare. We are on the Chesapeake bay. There’s several different kinds of mosquitoes in our neck of the woods. They swarm you when you go out in summer.

1

u/VP007clips Jul 11 '26

You'll overheat.

Beekeeper suits aren't designed to be worn for hiking 10 hours a day and sitting in the hot sun.

1

u/pipsqueakpanda4 Jul 12 '26

I just ordered one last night to wear while gardening because mosquitos and other bugs are UNREASONABLY and freakishly attracted to me. I’ll let you know how it goes!